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Medina girl is "truly a miracle child"

Sherry Schmidt could tell there was something
wrong with her 1-year-old daughter, Katie,
when all she wanted was to be held one stormy
day in February three years ago.

So Sherry took her from their home in Medina
to Jamestown, where Katie was tested for RSV and
strep throat. The tests came back negative. Katie
had a low-grade fever and was sent home with
what seemed to be a viral infection.

But then Katie’s condition worsened, and she
began having a seizure that would endure for an
agonizing 90 minutes with her fever spiking to
106.2 degrees. It was a stormy day, and her
father drove her in his four-wheel-drive to meet
a volunteer ambulance crew that took her to
Jamestown. Once she was stabilized, she was
transported to the pediatric intensive care unit at Sanfored Children’s Hospital
in Bismarck.

That’s a very long seizure that many people
might not survive, but Katie was met by
Sanford Health's neonatologist and pediatrician
Rafael Ocejo, MD, who Sherry says, “worked on her
until 3 in the morning.” It turned out she did have
RSV, which likely caused the seizure and led to
pneumonia. RSV is a common virus that leads to
cold symptoms in adults and healthy children but
can be a serious illness for babies. RSV tests can
show negative results but later test positive.

Katie Schmidt survived a 90-minute seizure thanks to great teamwork from her doctors. Today, the healthy 4-year-old is full of energy. "She loves to smile, make you laugh," said Katie's mom, Sherry Schmidt.

Sherry said she could tell right away the left side of Katie’s tiny body wasn’t working right. It was paralyzed, which can happen after a severe seizure.

“When I finally got to hold her the next day,
I could tell that side was just limp,” Sherry said.
“After a couple of days, it just didn’t come back.
She wouldn’t even recognize her
left side.”

Dr. Ocejo was cautiously optimistic.

“In all honesty, we didn’t know how much function she was going to
recover of her left side of her body,” he said. “But in children, because they
are very resilient, we always give them just about everything possible as a
chance. We never say ‘They’ll never walk’ because they are always
surprising us.”

Katie stayed in the Sanford Children’s Hospital for a month.
During her stay, Katie began rehabilitation therapy, and the Schmidts learned
ways to teach her to do things over again—such as how to roll over, get up
on her hands, grasp objects, even suck fluids.

“We basically had to start her as an infant all over again,” Sherry said.

After two-and-a-half years of rehabilitation therapy, Katie regained the
use of her left side and is now considered a normal 4-year-old preschooler.

“It took a long time to point her left finger,” Sherry said. “Or play piano
with her fingers. It seemed the farther away the extremity, the longer it took.”

It’s rare for someone to suffer a seizure like that and not have epilepsy or a seizure disorder, Sherry said.

Dr. Larry Johnson, Katie’s doctor at Sanford Health 2nd Ave. Clinic, said the case was unusual because RSV usually doesn’t cause seizures. But Katie was a premature baby—five weeks early—and had a minute-long seizure a few months prior to the big one. “She’s lucky to be alive,” Dr. Johnson said. “She is truly a miracle child in that regard.”

Sherry credits all of the doctors with saving Katie’s life the day of the
seizure. “It was a great teamwork effort,” she said, “between daycare,
doctors and the good Lord above putting all the right people in the right
places at the right time.”